Keenan Wynn
Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn (July 27, 1916, New York, New York, USA – October 14, 1986, Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA) was an American actor. His expressive face was his stock-in-trade; and, though he rarely carried the lead role, he had prominent billing in most of his film and television parts. Wynn appeared in hundreds of films and television shows between 1934 and 1986. He was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player during the 1940s and 1950s. He had a brief but memorable role as a belligerent, unsympathetic drunk in the classic wartime romance The Clock (1945). His early postwar credits include Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Royal Wedding (1951), Kiss Me, Kate (1953), Battle Circus (1953), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), A Hole in the Head (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), Son of Flubber (1963) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). He had an uncredited role in Touch of Evil (1958). In the 1959-1960 television season, Wynn co-starred with Bob Mathias in NBC's The Troubleshooters, an adventure program about unusual events surrounding an international construction company. Wynn played the role of Kodiak, the "troubleshooter", for Mathias's Frank Dugan. He appeared in numerous television series, such as the ABC/Warner Brothers drama, The Roaring 20s, The Islanders, and the ABC western series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. Wynn took a dramatic turn as Yost in the crime drama Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin. He had a leading role in the third Beach Party movie, Bikini Beach (1964) as a scheming newspaper publisher who wants to banish the local young people. Later he played Hezakiah in the 1965 comedy film, The Great Race (1965). He was the voice of the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) and appeared in several Disney films, including Snowball Express (1972), Herbie Rides Again (1974) and The Shaggy D.A. (1976) (as a villain who learns Wilbur Daniels's secret, and uses it against him). He appeared in Francis Coppola's musical Finian's Rainbow (1968), Sergio Leone's epic western Once Upon a Time in the West (also 1968), and Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). During this time his guest television roles included Alias Smith and Jones (1971-1972), Emergency! (1975), Movin' On (1975), and The Bionic Woman (1978). Wynn appeared in ten episodes of TV's Dallas during the 1979-80 season, playing the part of former Ewing family partner-turned-enemy Digger Barnes. David Wayne, a friend of Wynn's, had played Digger Barnes in 1978, but was unable to continue with the part because of Wayne's co-starring role in the CBS series, House Calls, starring Wayne Rogers. Wynn was initially cast in Superman (1978) to play Perry White (the boss of Clark Kent and Lois Lane at the Daily Planet) in April 1977. However, by June (production had moved to Pinewood Studios in England), Wynn collapsed from exhaustion and was rushed to a hospital. He was replaced by Jackie Cooper. In 1983, he guest-starred in one of the last episodes of Taxi and Quincy M.E. In 1984, he starred in the television film Call to Glory, which later became a weekly television series. Category:Actors from USA